Skepticism that they will reach a mutually acceptable agreement is running high. But in their early public comments since receiving the assignment, several of the lawmakers appointed to the panel have sounded unexpectedly eager to find common ground -- and to avoid taking the kind of rigid stands that would be difficult to rescind once negotiations begin.
"Look, I think this supercommittee is about as dumb an idea as Washington has come up with in my lifetime," Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said at the Iowa Republican debate last week. Unelectable, but not a moron.
"The idea that 523 senators and congressmen are going to sit around for four months while 12 brilliant people, mostly picked for political reasons, are going to sit in some room and brilliantly come up with a trillion dollars or force us to choose between gutting our military and accepting a tax increase is irrational," he said. It is good news for the 511 remaining, who get to sit on their keesters and laugh.
The group's 12 members are veterans who were chosen in part because of their close bonds with House and Senate leaders. They include the chairmen of the tax-writing committees in both the House and Senate, a former Democratic presidential nominee and a former budget director for President George W. Bush.
For the most part, they are considered neither firebrands given to heated rhetoric nor mavericks likely to make a deal without the approval of their respective party caucuses. In Seattle, Sen. Patty Murray (Dim-Wash.), the group's Democratic chairwoman, pleaded that the panel be given time and space to do its work. "We need time and space to raise taxes!"
Gene Clem, president of the Southwest Michigan Tea Party Patriots, said he would tell Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), a supercommittee member, "to come up with real solutions and put the politics aside." Last year, Upton faced a tough primary challenge from a local Michigan tea partyer who argued that Upton was too moderate on spending issues.
Now, Clem said he wants Upton and other panel members to eliminate tax loopholes and corporate subsidies -- even if that results in higher revenue for the government -- provided tax rates are lowered overall and entitlements are also cut. We've been headed down this road since LBJ turned left in 1966; maybe it's time to get off the road and on to another route.
"Maybe that's where the tea party needs to be," Clem said. "To bring the two sides together where there needs to be agreement. Like the parent, to bang their heads together." Somebody's got to act like a grown-up!
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/14/2011 10:23 ||
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#1
the appointments of Clyburn, Becerra, Murray indicate the Dems are not serious about this. What? Moran or Boxer weren't available?
Posted by: Frank G on the road ||
08/14/2011 10:34 Comments ||
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#2
Of the 535 senators and congresscritters, 12 are on the committee and the other 523 are also going to sit around for four, or fifteen, months depoending on your perspective.
#4
If I understand things correctly, which I doubt, the next encounter of the fecal material with the rotary device occurs on September 30, when the 2011 fiscal year ends and the Congress either has to pass a budget or pass continuing resolutions to keep the government operating (or not.).
For those Rantburgers too young to remember when the US government had a budget, a quick Google search will fill you in.
Posted by: Matt ||
08/14/2011 12:08 Comments ||
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#5
I thought we already had a committee, It's called Congress.
Boy, has this government strayed from it's legitimacy.
#7
Newt's got a curious problem. The more unelectable people think he is, the more unelectable he is. The more debates he appears in, the more he sounds like the only mature adult with ideas that work and are basically acceptable by most of those who think he's unelectable.
He's still unelectable, but it will be very useful for the GOP to keep him visible for as long as possible.
#9
In the old days, a President Perry or Romney would have made Newt the Postmaster-General, just to have him around for generating ideas and keep him out of the way otherwise.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/14/2011 16:31 Comments ||
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#11
In the old days, a President Perry or Romney would have made Newt the Postmaster-General, just to have him around for generating ideas and keep him out of the way otherwise.
That's why we've moved to the new, modern, up-to-date position of Tsar.
#1
he spent most of his capital trying to drag down Bachmann. How'd that work for you, Tim?
Posted by: Frank G on the road ||
08/14/2011 10:26 Comments ||
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#2
The idea was that a Republican who governed a largely Democratic state and successfully did battle with a hostile legislature was the right choice to challenge President Obama next year.
But Pawlenty never gained traction. He was overshadowed from the start by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, whose deep coffers and national network from his unsuccessful presidential bid four years ago pushed him into the frontrunner position from the start of the year.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/14/2011 11:44 Comments ||
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#3
Bachman has no legs. You don't run for the Presidency from the house. TPaw was a serious player. Now that he's out we are one step closer to unifying behind one not-Romney candidate.
#6
Over a year of Campaigning and he can't get any legs ANYWHERE. Pretty obvious he was going to die here. Since he dropped out I think he was going for possible VP in the Straw-poll. Not going to happen.
Posted by: Charles ||
08/14/2011 14:30 Comments ||
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CHEYENNE, Wyo. A judge on Friday threw out Obama administration rules that sought to slow down expedited environmental review of oil and gas drilling on federal land.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Freudenthal ruled in favor of a petroleum industry group, the Western Energy Alliance, in its lawsuit against the federal government, including Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The ruling reinstates Bush-era expedited oil and gas drilling under provisions called categorical exclusions on federal lands nationwide, Freudenthal said.
The government argued that oil and gas companies had no case because they didn't show how the new rules, implemented by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service last year, had created delays and added to the cost of drilling.
Freudenthal rejected that argument. "Western Energy has demonstrated through its members recognizable injury," she said. "Those injuries are supported by the administrative record."
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 allows the BLM and Forest Service to invoke categorical exclusions and skip new environmental review for drilling permits under certain circumstances. The circumstances include instances where companies plan to disturb relatively little ground and environmental review already has been done for that area. A categorical exclusion also can be invoked when additional drilling is planned at a well pad where drilling has occurred within the previous five years.
Categorical exclusions were widely used throughout the West especially in the gas boom states of Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico until last year.
When Champ and his minions decided that all this wealth and prosperity would drive the country into ruin, and thus shut it all down.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/14/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Possibly good news, but probably signifying nothing. Aren't Zero and his goons regulators already ignoring at least one Federal judge's mandate to issue Gulf drilling permits?
#2
How refreshing. Checks and balances. Almost like that whole separation of powers dealy still sorta works.
Ah. Judge is a Wyoming native, nominated by Obama in 2009, has only been in the post for a year. Deciding on the basis of the evidence? Ballsy. That's why federal judicial appointments are for life. Although, it's a bad sign when we can say, the judicial branch is the one that's working.
#3
So we now have oil drilling ban - nope
Obamacare - struggling to stay alive
Elusive birth certificate- show cause Hawaii why you should NOT have to produce it
It would seem that Bambi's legal box score is looking more like the Mariner's than what martin Luther King, Jr, would be capable of producing.
This POS isn't even qualified to carry any of the good Doctor's books.
#4
Amazing to me that this was a Clinton appointee. It shows a sharp contrast between what this stupid a-hole is appointing now. Somewhere in the old John Kennedy universe of the dead corpse of the Democrat party, there are still some that have the balls to stand up for the Constitution. Do not balk at it. It shows Intestinal Fortitude.
Be proud that there is at least one Judge in this United States willing to risk it all for what is right and correct and damn the torpedos.
Even if all other decisions made by this Judge suck, this very one deems this Judge worthy of respect by default because it's account was solid and took on the most menacing and bullying administration in American history.
Bless all of you in the states that made this happen and bless this Judge that ensured the rule of law is more important than some pie in the sky assed up program.
#5
My bad, you are right random. It IS an Obama appointee.
Something or someone told me it was a Clintonian though. Still, my statement stands minus the appointment.
#6
And what would happen in OBumbles simply ignores the order?
It isn't like the God-King wannabe hasn't done so before.
Posted by: CrazyFool in the Philippines ||
08/14/2011 10:11 Comments ||
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#7
example #4,297 of Obama's lawless behavior
Posted by: Frank G on the road ||
08/14/2011 10:16 Comments ||
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#8
CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- A judge on Friday threw out Obama administration rules that sought to slow down expedited environmental review of oil and gas drilling on federal land.
Now if we could only get a Federal judge to .....THROW OUT OBAMA!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. A judge on Friday threw out Obama administration rules that sought to slow down expedited environmental review of oil and gas drilling on federal land.
